Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable review – bug hunt

One of our proudest moments at GameCentral is successfully championing Global Defence Force on the PlayStation 2. Being a super obscure budget title almost no one else bothered to review it back in 2007, and so when it started racing up the sales charts of Play.com we knew GameCentral readers must have been in large part responsible.

With the follow-up release of Earth Defence Force 2017 on Xbox 360 it seemed as if the series might be able to make a serious name for itself. But 2017 was a mild disappointment and still there hasn’t been another mainline sequel, just mediocre spin-off Insect Armageddon by a low rent American team. Earth Defense Force 2025 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 is apparently scheduled for the West this year, but we worry that it’s going to be too little too late.

The history of the series is a complicated one, not least given the inconsistency with which the original Japanese name of Chikyū Bōeigun has been translated. The first game was part of a large range of original budget titles which occasionally got released in the West but were invariably awful. The first game was named Monster Attack in Europe but was only released on the Continent.

The second game in the series is Global Defence Force, and this is an enhanced version of the third. It was the first to be sold at full price in Japan but was still £25 or less in Europe, which was unusual for a new Xbox 360 title. The concept for all the games is the same though, as you take on the role of a lowly grunt trying to save the world from hordes of giant aliens.

In basic gameplay terms this is a fairly straight forward third person shooter, with a point and shoot control system similar to Saints Row (there’s also a simplified alternative system but it seems unnecessary given how basic things are anyway). The gunplay itself is pretty weak, with no sense of feedback to the weapons – even when they’re giant missile launchers – and often little indication of whether you’re injuring an enemy.

But the novelty is the sheer sense of scale and manic urgency. When we say giant aliens we mean it and the smallest enemies you come across are ants the size of a double decker bus. These swarm in their dozens, clambering over skyscrapers and squirting acid. But they’re nothing compared to the giant spiders, robots, Godzilla style monsters, and different marques of alien spaceship.

The screen is often completely filled with enemies and, unlike the rest of the series, there’s very little slowdown this time. There’s also very little nuance or level structure, you’re just dumped in an open world city and expected to get on with it.

There are some horrible-to-control vehicles to commandeer but more useful are the extra weapons you can collect from downed enemies. We’re not sure what a giant ant is doing wandering around with a human-sized grenade launcher but again there are hundreds of different variants across eight different categories – from assault rifles to a welding torch.

It’s cheap and cheerful in a way video games rarely are nowadays and the atmosphere is enhanced but the wonderfully awful comments from your fellow troops. These have been added to since the original version and include such corkers as ‘A giant UFO is approaching the city! What do I do? Where do I hide?!’ and ‘When this is over I’m going to ask you out on a date!’

This latter is aimed at the jetpack equipped ‘Pale Wing’, a female soldier who was available as an optional character in Global Defence Force but was inexplicably removed from Earth Defense Force 2017 (along with a number of extra enemy types and city backdrops). Stupidly though you have to beat the game to unlock her.

Since she has her own separate set of weapons, having the Pale Wing available from the start would’ve greatly helped with the lack of gameplay variety – as it once did in Global Defence Force. But instead the game completely wastes one of its most important new features.

The other main addition for this version is a range of new multiplayer modes, including a four-player local and online option for the entire 60 mission story campaign. The new versus mode is awful but as welcome as the four-player co-op is it still doesn’t compare to the fun of playing the original in split screen mode with a friend sat on the same sofa.

On a technical level this portable version fixes most of the frame rate issues from the original, but only makes minor improvements to the rest of the game. That means the same terrible animation, wonky physics engine, and almost complete lack of enemy artificial intelligence – although allies will take down enemies for you with relative competence. The levels are large and almost everything in it can be destroyed by either you or the aliens, up to and including whole skyscrapers.

But this isn’t a game that’s ever going to impress in terms of either its graphics or its gameplay finesse. It’s the gaming equivalent of a B-movie and while it was a fun and unexpectedly unique ride five years ago it’s now lost both the element of surprise and its low price of entry. £35 is more than the original Xbox 360 version and since it’s download-only there’s not much hope of its price dropping in the short term.

We still enjoyed this version, but it’s a series whose boat has now sailed and unless the new game is a considerable step forward we don’t see it ever regaining its former cult status.

In Short: Its B-movie charm is beginning to sag and this revamp of the Xbox 360 hit fails to make the most of its enhancements – or charge an appropriate price for them.

Pros: Mesmerisingly cheesy at every turn, with a scale and atmosphere that is still unique. Hundreds of collectable weapons and welcome new online co-op.

Cons: More expensive than the original version and yet with most of the same technical issues. The slog to unlock the Pale Wing is a horrendously poor decision.